aiting for the repeal of the Imperial Act by which these endowments
were guaranteed. More loyal and moderate counsels however prevailed, owing
chiefly to the support which they received from the Roman Catholics of
Lower Canada, at one time so violently disaffected. In 1850 the Assembly
voted an Address to the Queen, praying that the Act referred to might be
repealed, and that the Local Legislature might be empowered to dispose of
the reserved lands, subject to the condition of securing to the existing
holders for their lives the stipends to which they were then entitled. To
this Address a favourable answer was returned by Lord Grey; who, while
avowing the preference of Her Majesty's Government for the existing
arrangement, by which a certain portion of the public lands of Canada were
applied to religious uses, admitted at the same time that the question of
maintaining it was one so exclusively affecting the people of Canada, that
its decision ought not to be withdrawn from the Provincial Legislature.

A Bill for granting to the Colony the desired powers was intended to be
introduced into Parliament during the session of 1851, but owing to the
pressure of other business it was deferred to the next year. It was to have
been brought forward in a few days, when the break-up of Lord John
Russell's Ministry caused it to be again postponed; and it was not till May
9, 1853, that the long looked-for Act received the Queen's assent.

No action could be taken in the matter by the Colonial Parliament for
that year, as its session closed on June 14; and when it met again next
year a ministerial crisis, followed by a dissolution and a change of
Ministers, caused a postponement of all legislation. Finally, on October
17, 1854, a Bill for the 'Secularisation of the Clergy Reserves' was
introduced into the Assembly. The more moderate and thoughtful men of every
party are said to have been at heart opposed to it; but it was impossible
for them to stand against the current of popular feeling. The Bill speedily
became law; the Clergy Reserves were handed over to the various municipal
corporations for secular uses; and though by this means 'a noble provision
made for the sustentation of religion was frittered away so as to produce
but few beneficial results,'[1] a question which had long been the
occasion of much heart-burning was at least settled, and settled for ever.
A slender provision for the future was saved out of the wreck by t